With the advance of technology, computing devices, particularly mobile computing devices and other small form-factor computing devices, increasingly are becoming more capable and functional. Mobile computing devices are now used for an assortment of functions, including telephony, messaging, web browsing, media playback, image/video capture, and location based services. At the same time, mobile computing devices now have display surfaces that are designed to be operable in multiple orientations (e.g., landscape and portrait), thus allowing greater optimization for certain functions and/or flexibility to suit a user's preferences.
Some devices now incorporate accelerometers or gravity sensors to automatically reorient the display output depending on how the display surface is positioned relative to the earth's gravitational force. However, such sensors do not provide a convenient way of reorienting the display output when the orientation-dependent device lies flat (i.e., substantially perpendicular to gravity) or at a low angle.